Anchorage Daily News

Gardeners and farmers along the Matanuska River in Palmer say the biggest plague of grasshoppers in more than half a century is scouring their fields and devouring practically everything in sight.

"There's places where you look at the ground and they just completely cover it," said Ted Pyrah of Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Farm. "When you drive across or walk across, the whole ground is alive."

The migratory grasshoppers, or locusts, pale tan creatures about 1 1/2 inches long, hatched in extraordinary numbers along the banks of the river this spring, said Pam Compton, pest management specialist for the U.S. Cooperative Extension Service in Palmer.

They are flourishing because of a couple of relatively warm winters followed by this year's dry, warm spring and summer, she said. A sprinkle has fallen in July, which is normally the start of the rainy season, the National Weather Service said. That's not helping.

After incubating on the sandy riverbank for two years, Compton said, the grasshoppers are now thick along the Matanuska River, for example in the Bodenburg Loop and Springer Road areas, but haven't invaded in force elsewhere, she said.

Doug Warner, a state agriculture development specialist, agreed that the damage appears to be limited so far.

Smaller numbers of the insects are hopping around in open fields in South Anchorage, said Fred Sorensen, pest coordinator in the Anchorage Cooperative Extension office. But "we're not getting complaints like they've had in Mat-Su."

If the hoppers run out of food in the Valley, they could fly into the city, but no one expects them to.

Grasshoppers have been reported around Alaska for many years, Sorensen said. They're just having a particularly plentiful year.

"I've never seen them this bad," Pyrah said. He said the dry July and grasshopper infestation combined have killed 25 percent to 30 percent of his hay crop.

"I don't know what to do about them."

Pyrah also operates a you-pick farm with 34 kinds of produce. The grasshoppers eat leaves from all the vegetables, wherever the soil is sandy, he said. "They're just as thick in the potatoes as in the zucchini."

In the new Colony East Subdivision, Jim Tracy started noticing grasshoppers three to four days after Memorial Day.

"They show up in twos and fours and sixes. You don't pay much attention," he said.

He had just seeded a new lawn and planted trees and bushes at a cost of $5,800. "I told my wife, 'I got to go out to the back shed and cut that grass.' The next day she looked out and said, 'You don't have to cut the grass. It's bare ground.' "

Grasshoppers had eaten it down to the dirt, Tracy said. They also ate all the strawberries, half the lettuce and about two-thirds of the squash from his garden.

In his subdivision, "they hit five of us really bad," Tracy said.

The farmers and gardeners have tried to halt the grasshopper invasion.

"We've tried vacuuming them up. Stomping on them," said Wesley Grover, who has been farming off and on since 1948. "My wife got some insecticide. It probably did a little good. ... In order to control them, I think you almost need to spray them."

Tracy let some ducks and geese loose in his front yard for a while. The ducks actually hunted for the bugs; the geese needed them served up.

Eventually the grasshoppers overran the fowl.

Pyrah said he hopes the Cooperative Extension Service will come up with a solution.

But short of rain and colder weather, there really isn't a good one, Compton said. "They're very mobile now and are very tough to kill."

Insecticides do work to some extent, she said. But it's easier to bait them with poison when they're juveniles. Since grasshopper eggs hatch in two years, insect watchers will be on the lookout for another large crop in 2004, she said.

There's a small window of time in spring 2004 when the grasshoppers can be baited with a protozoan that kills them, she said. As they die, other grasshoppers eat them and become diseased as well.

Reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com and 907 257-4340.